With two predecessors in its wake, Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is the third installment to hit Xbox Live Arcade, iPad, Steam, and the PlayStation Network. The DotP series has generally been known for pulling long-lost Magic players back into the game while also picking up some newbies like me along the way. This is largely due to the game’s ability to take care of every manual aspect of a Magic tournament in real life – counting, shuffling, placing counters, and defining attributes on the spot can go a long way in pleasing a Magic player.

I’ve spent my entire Magic career growing up on the DotP series for XBLA so needless to say I had some standards and small expectations in place before coming into this. Although the DotP series has been successful in creating an overall smooth and easy-to-pick-up Magic platform, there were a few necessary tweaks that I’ve been keeping my eye on. They say third time’s a charm -- and they may have been right.